Ode to "Windfall"

The frigid December winds blew in this week making outdoors not a nice place to be. It's so cold that even the dog pauses before bolting out the door and it's the kind of cold that freezes your nose hairs the instant you step outside. This kind of cold air rips through your clothes and makes you feel naked because the thick parka you're wearing doesn't seem to matter.

For sanity sake, during these Arctic blasts, I reminisce about the steamy, dog days of summer. I hunker down for the winter and do tasks that I put off all summer, like filing. The other day, I came across the lyrics to one of my favorite songs, "Windfall" by Son Volt, and they conjured up random memories - some of them pleasant, some of them not.

Just a few short months ago I was sweaty and melting in the July heat driving to a creative non-fiction writing workshop in Northfield, Minnesota - a 4o minute commute south. On the first day, my normally dependable car lit up like a Christmas tree on the ride home. Every light on the dashboard flickered on and off as the car slowly lost power until it came to its peaceful resting spot on the side of the the highway.

Fortunately, enough juice remained in the engine to allow the power windows to open so that my travel companion, Amy, and I didn't have to stand outside on the boiling asphalt and blazing sun. We dialed our husbands. Then I dialed my mother-in-law to pick us up, while my husband dialed a tow truck. Amy and I passed the time standing outside when the temperature inside the car became too stifling, then sat back inside the car when our skin sizzled like eggs on a hot Teflon skillet. We dabbed our perspiring foreheads with pink Kleenex I managed to scavenge from the back seat.

We wondered aloud why no one stopped to help two "youngish" women on the side of the road. The heat was heavy and dangled in the air like a deflated helium balloon and the unseasonably dry air caused us to breathe shallow. We lumbered about because of the the blistering heat and the threat of sweat saturating our clothes. Another car stalled on the other side of the highway and we gave him a camaraderie wave. Lucky for him a tow truck was on its way and could radio in for another truck. Finally, a pick-up truck with South Dakota license plates stopped, the nice man asked if we needed help (we did not), and handed us two bottles of water as he drove away. The cool water barreled down our dry throat and sustained us until our ride came to our rescue.

During the writing workshop, I met a very cool woman named Monica, who is the wife of Jay Farrar, the lead singer/song writer of this great band. She was down-to-earth and unassuming, despite her rock-star wife status and she didn't seem to mind when I gushed about loving the song "Windfall".

I fell in love with it when it first came out, but the song became more significant when my newborn struggled to fall asleep on her own. I sat for hours rocking her in the darken bedroom, ignoring the clock that read 3AM, and listening to the low-hum of the radio I turned on to lull her to sleep. "Windfall" seem to play at the same time every night and the words "may the wind take your troubles away" resonated with me because I was going out of my mind with sleep deprivation and worry because she wouldn't sleep. Those words reminded me of what I heard so often back then from so many other mothers that "this to shall pass" and it did. Now I reflect with peaceful melancholy of a very special time with my daughter, despite the conflicting memories of the post-delivery, new-baby-mania haze.

So, in honor of reminders of certain memorable event and want-to-forget times in life and the things that you get you through them, I share these lyrics.

::::::::Windfall:::::::: (Jay Farrar)

Now and then it keeps you running
Sometimes it just won't die
Trail spent with fear
Not enough living on the outside
Never seem to get far enough
Staying in between the lines
Hold on to what you can
Waiting for the end, not knowing when

CHORUS:
May the wind take your troubles away
May the wind take your troubles away
Both feet on the floor
Two hands on the wheel
May the wind take your troubles away

BRIDGE:
Trying to make it far enough
To the next time zone
Few and far between past the midnight hour
Never feel alone
You're really not alone

VERSE 2:
Switching it over to A.M.,
Searching for a truer sound;
Can't recall the call letters,
Steel guitar, I settle down.
Catching an all-night station
Somewhere in Louisiana,
Sounds like 1963
But for now sounds like heaven.

CHORUS
May the wind take your troubles away
May the wind
Take your troubles away